Being not all in one place means I am not in a defined state except to an event which has measured that entire state, which can only be in the future of the state being defined. — noAxioms

Why would this event, which measures all the defined states as one state, need to be in the future of those states? Can't the different defined states just be compared as occurring in different frames of reference?

Quite true, but it is still at least 'right here', or at least as much as 'here' can be defined for an entity which doesn't exist all in one place. — noAxioms

What do you think it means for an entity not to exist all at one place? Could one part of that entity be in one frame of reference, and another part be in another?

Are children bad? — TheMadFool

Yes, they can be. The problem is that you are trying to make an unjustified generalization. "All children are innocent, and all criminals are guilty".

I cannot see the present moon, but I see light in the image of moon right now. — noAxioms

I wouldn't say that this is "right now", because the image is created, and that takes time. The light hitting your eyes is processed, and the image is created. So even the light from the moon hitting your eyes is in the past by the time you see the image.

My only concern is why the same treatment (punishment) is used for two contradictory problems (childhood innocence and evil criminals). — TheMadFool

Also, I think your description of children as innocent is accurate, but a bit incomplete. They are innocent in the sense that they are not morally responsible for their actions, but they do come pre-programmed to test boundaries and experiment just what will happen if rules are broken. — NKBJ

We tell the children what they ought not do, and when they break those boundaries they are punished. In this sense, they are not innocent. But there's a reverse paradox here. For adults ignorance (and this means unaware of, rather than ignoring) of the law is no defence. For an adult, one's innocence of the laws, and naivety, may render that person guilty, and subject to punishment.

This present time, which is like a moving index on every timeline, is not implied or required by any physical law. As far as physics is concerned, positing such an index is unjustified. — SophistiCat

I think that this statement is a little deceptive. In order for a physicist to measure time, something must be moving, changing. The physicist might take the passing of time for granted, but this does not mean that the passing of time is not required for physics, to the contrary, it is what is taken for granted. Therefore positing the passing of time by physicists, is justified, as that which is taken for granted. And, it is expressed by the second law of thermodynamics.

The existence of the one and only time dimension is acknowledged by both presentists and eternalists - with all that that implies: where there is time, there is motion. — SophistiCat

What you refuse to acknowledge is that there is no motion in the block. Nor is motion implied. The block is a representation which effectively removes motion, that's why it's called "the block". The same principles which produce the 4D block also produce a symmetrical time dimension. This means that if it were possible that something could travel (move) through the block, the travel on the time dimension is not restricted to one direction.

The asymmetrical nature of time is represented by a principle which is distinct from the principles that produce the block. That is the second law of thermodynamics. This law describes an odd property observed in energy. The problem here is that this law is only produced from observations made by humans beings moving within "the block". We do move through the block, and the cause of this movement through the block is not accounted for by the representation, which is "the block". So the problem is that the 4D representation provides no premise whereby a human being could move through the block yet we do move through the block.

Therefore we must be forced to move, as time passes, by a power which is not represented by "the block". The force which powers human beings through the block (the passing of time) is not represented in "the block". However, the consequence of this force which powers us through the block, is our observations of the block as we and everything else observable, are being powered through it; and this is what give us that second law of thermodynamics. The second law describes what we observe as the effects of ourselves, and everything else, being forced through the block by a cause which is not represented as part of "the block". It is the description of our motion through the block (which is caused by something not represented by "the block") which validates the asymmetrical time as opposed to the symmetrical time of "the block".

What's the name of the thing you're talking about here? — creativesoul

Sorry, but I'm not talking about a thing. I'm talking about an imaginary cat. When are you going to get that through your head? I refer to a subject, you refer to an object. You think I'm referring to an object, and I think you're referring to a subject. Neither of us is successful in our reference.

I'm not interested in self-perpetuated confusion by virtue of inadequate framework. — creativesoul

Right, I've demonstrated that your framework is inadequate and perpetuates confusion, yet you appear to be uninterested. So be it.

You need not believe that I have a cat named Cookie in order for you to be referring to her by name. If your use of "Cookie" is not referring to my cat, then what on earth are you referring to? — creativesoul

I told you what I'm referring to, a subject, a matter for discussion, an imaginary cat name Cookie.

You may think/believe that my cat is an imaginary one... no problem. You're still talking about my cat. — creativesoul

Let me get this straight. You claim to have named something. I claim that the thing named is non-existent. Now you claim that you have successfully directed my attention toward this thing which I do not even believe exists. How do you propose that I have focused my attention on something which I do not even believe exists?

Not all successful reference by naming practices picks out living animals Meta. Cookie is my cat though; one of them... — creativesoul

Well, if you want your reference to be successful, I suggest you convince me that you do, in fact, have a cat which you have named Cookie. At this point, I truly believe that this is imaginary, so your reference is far from successful.

You have successfully directed my attention to a subject, a matter for discussion, (an imaginary cat named Cookie) but you have not directed my attention toward any physical object or living creature.

And yet you speak of her! — creativesoul

If that's what you call "successful reference" then I strongly disagree. I can speak about a cat named Cookie till the end of my life, but that doesn't mean I'm referring to any real living animal.

And, if you think that I am referring to a real living animal, your cat, you're delusional because I've already told you that I don't believe you have a cat named Cookie. Sorry if I'm being harsh, calling you a liar, but that's reality.

This mistakenly presupposes that you must see Cookie in order to focus your attention on her. You haven't and yet you have. — creativesoul

Now you're getting to the point. I have not focused my attention on any physical creature named "Cookie". You don't seem to be getting that. I actually don't even believe that you have a cat named "Cookie". I think you've just brought this idea up, "my cat named Cookie", as a subject for discussion.

That's why we need to distinguish reference to a subject from reference to an object in any attempt to define "successful reference". As I've been telling you, you've successfully referred to a subject (a cat named Cookie) but you have not successfully referred to any real living creature.

Referring is referring. A subject is not an object. Subjects and objects are referred to in the manner laid out in the OP. That is two distinct names for different 'kinds' of referent, not different kinds of referring. A referent is what is picked out of this world by the designator/sign/symbol. Names and descriptions are designators. — creativesoul

The problem I explained to you, is that the same name refers to two kinds of referent. The name "Cookie" might refer to an object, a creature you hold on your lap, or it might refer to a subject, a cat. In this thread, you use "Cookie" to refer to a subject, a cat. You have not used "Cookie" to refer to an object, because you have not shown me that a creature who bears that name even exists, so it is impossible that you have successfully referenced an object named "Cookie".

If I use the same term in two different senses in the same argument, then we''ll address it accordingly. — creativesoul

So tell me, how were you using "Cookie"? Does this name refer to a subject, as you have successfully referenced a subject, or were you using it to reference a real physical creature, in which case your reference has been unsuccessful.

Doesn't a lie/falsehood refer to something too? It refers to fictitious events or objects but the reference is there, isn't it? — TheMadFool

We do not only refer to objects, we also refer to subjects (matters to be discussed). When it is a subject which is referred to, truth or fiction is irrelevant to the reference.

There is more than one conception of reference. Your disagreement does not render the conception in the OP mistaken. The fact that you work from a different notion than I has no bearing upon the explanatory power and/or verifiability/falsifiability of the one I'm presenting in the OP. — creativesoul

Your OP conflates with ambiguity, two distinct types of referring, referring to a subject and referring to an object. Until you separate these two, providing the necessary distinction between them, (and I demonstrated that this is necessary), your thread will be full of equivocation and confusion. What's the point in proceeding without making clear this distinction?

Time travel into the past is coherent, because the past is real. Having actually occurred, events of the past have actual existence and therefore might be visited. Time travel into the future on the other hand is incoherent, because there is no time there. Time is what is measured at the present, as time passes. Therefore all time is past time. One cannot "time travel" into the future because there is no time there.

From what I understand, Wittgenstein was not impressed by the philosophical discussions of the "Apostles". Probably their skepticism was too institutionalized and not radical enough for him. He seems to have had within him the Karl Marx attitude --- strip the Idea of all formal aspects, leaving exposed its material basis.

What makes you think they dont want to expand their empire? — DingoJones

History.

Ditto with presentism, which also has states in between, else it is a series of discreet jumps. — noAxioms

I don't think that's the case with presentism. What we notice at the present is activity, not a static state. This is what makes presentism so difficult. We notice that things are changing at the present, but logic will tell us that change requires a quantity of time. How is the present a quantity of time?

Suppose I say "now". That takes a period of time. So the present represented by that expression is a period of time. With modern technology, we reduce that period of time to the tiniest fraction of a second. nevertheless, it remains a period of time. We could say that the present is a second, a picosecond, a Planck length, and that is going toward a shorter and shorter quantity of time. We could go the other way, and say that the present is an hour, a day, a year, a million years, or billions of years. It is an arbitrary designation to stipulate that the present has a duration of X length. Nevertheless, the present always consists of a quantity of time, and therefore cannot be represented by states because things change in that quantity of time.

Getting down to the quantum level, neither case is infinite regress. There comes a point where no measurements are taken and there are no intermediate states. This comes from me, who has thrown his lot in with the principle of locality rather than the principle of counterfactual definiteness. Can't have both.... — noAxioms

The problem, and this is what Aristotle demonstrated, is that there must be something intermediate between the two states, or else the change is not accounted for in the description, therefore the description is deficient. It doesn't matter if it's at the level of twenty seconds, or the Planck level, if the description is of two successive, and different states, there must be something intermediary to account for the "becoming" (the change from one state to the next). If your description is only in "states" then there is necessarily an infinite regress. If you posit Planck length to put an end to the infinite regress, then you still have the very same problem, but at a tiny level. You have two successive different states, with no description of how things change from one state to the next. Therefore we must posit a "becoming" which occurs between the two states. This is the argument which Aristotle used to demonstrate that "being" (as states) is fundamentally incompatible with "becoming" (change or activity). That's why he proposed a hylomorphic dualism, to account for these two distinct aspects of reality.

The block has both those states, separated by 2 seconds. — noAxioms

OK, there's a state with you at the top of the stairs, then a state with you at the bottom. Where's the motion? Aristotle demonstrated, that if you describe such changes in terms of states, you'll always need an intermediate state between the two states, to account for the change. This results in an infinite regress of always needing another state to account for the change between the two states. You falling on the stairs is the intermediary between you at the top, and you at the bottom. You falling forward is the state between you at the top, and you falling on the stairs. Ad infinitum.

If Chinese leaders had world domination as a goal, they might actually be able to achieve it. They don't though, unlike Russian leaders.

That's to prevent dolts from going in there and doing irreparable damage. (I'll advocate for you too -- for a fee.)

So if words are about things, what sort of a thing is a hypothetical cat?

I'm talking hypothetically. It refers to a hypothetical state of affairs. Does that make sense? — Purple Pond

OK, but it's an example which you posted for some purpose. So the point is, the phrase you posted "the cat is on the mat", is not really about any cat or any mat at all, it's about some sort of demonstration you're trying to make.

How can mere words be about anything? For example, when I say, "the cat is on the mat", I'm talking about the cat being on the mat. The statement is about a state of affairs. — Purple Pond

This is not true. When you state "the cat is on the mat" here, you are posting that phrase up as an example. I really don't believe that you are saying anything about any cat on any mat.

They're more relaxing, yeah. — fdrake

Right, if we're going to take a look at how people deceive us, we ought to do it in a way that doesn't stress us out.

There is no "lack of motion" in eternalism, so yes I ignore fictitious problems. — Inis

There is a lack of motion in eternalism. You would have to turn to something outside the block universe as the source of any perceived motion within the universe.

I suggest we all immerse ourselves in serious (I mean SERIOUS!) metaphysical issues to avoid the disease of the idle mind.

W indicates that the concepts of ethics and aesthetics contain a high degree of blurriness, and that (e.g.) philosophers have a similarly hopeless task of trying to find "definitions that correspond to our concepts". — Luke

I think he goes even further than this, suggesting that since it is a hopeless task, we ought not even try to define ethical words like "good", instead, recognizing that such words just naturally have a "family of meanings". That is why I said he is rejecting Platonic dialectics, which is a method that analyzes different sorts of usage in an attempt to produce the ideal definition which all usage partakes of; as exemplified by "the good".

Roger Stone. Any relation to you?

That was an analogy, not an attempt to change the subject.

Until you either recognize, or disprove, my claim that there are two distinct types of referring, your propositions remain meaningless and nonsensical.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/249720

Indeterminate means having no fixed value. So consider this analogy. Some one asks you what time it is. By the time you say what time it is, it is no longer that time. So "what time it is" has no fixed value, and time is inherently indeterminate.

Newtonian relativity. Inertia is frame of reference dependent. There is no absolute rest.

It's only indeterminate if you're looking for an overaching time perspective, which is why I brought that up first. — Terrapin Station

It has nothing to do with an overarching time perspective, we went through that already. Why do you allow that idea to distract you? It's the human perspective. We designate points in time as the beginning and ending of a period of measurement. That's how we quantify time. Without such points we have no measurement of time, but the human capacity to designate such points is deficient. Therefore from the human perspective, time is indeterminate.

Keep in my, that at 75 he is asking those questions. He provides no answer to them at 75. To answer these questions he draws the analogy of two pictures at 76. Another person wants sharp boundaries to the concept "game" (definition), Wittgenstein does not want such boundaries. Wittgenstein's "picture" is one of colour patches with vague contours, the other person's "picture" has similarly distributed colours, with sharp contours. There are similarities between them, and there are differences. He proceeds to investigate the correlation at 77.

Last week, in my post: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/246986 I said this is analogous to comparing what a person with poor vision sees, to what one with 20/20 vision sees. and Isaac did not like my analogy. But really it's Wittgenstein's own analogy of "seeing", and we do judge whether a person sees better or worse.

In any case, Wittgenstein proceeds with the two pictures analogy at 77, to investigate whether a picture with clearly defined colour contours can be made to correspond with the one with vague colour patches. As I said in the post referenced above, I see this a s a rejection of Platonic dialectics.

Exactly, just as the twin that takes a side trip to some other star and back is not measuring the duration between the two events of departure and return. — noAxioms

All things change place as time passes, it's a premise of relativity. If moving means that one cannot measure duration, then time is indefterminate.

Do you agree? — creativesoul

No I disagree. In the appropriate context, showing someone your cat is referring to your cat.

He's saying, that if his knowledge of what a game is, is equivalent to an unformulated definition, then he ought to be able to formulate that definition, and this description, or explanation, which he ought to be able to produce, if his knowledge is like that, would completely express his knowledge of what a game is.

He's going to show at 76-77, that his knowledge of what a game is, is not like this. It is not the case that he could produce an explanation, description, or definition, which could express his knowledge of what a game is, because it would be extremely difficult to make that explanation, description, or definition "correspond" with the knowledge that he has of what a game is. This would be a hopeless task.

can measure the distance between myself and that tree over there, and get an indeterminate value because one of the measuring tapes takes a path around that other tree to the left over there, and thus measures a different distance. So all measurements are indeterminate in that sense. — noAxioms

It's not analogous unless you are claiming that the distance between yourself and the tree is indeterminate. And that's not what your claiming, because taking a side trip around another tree is not measuring the distance between yourself and the tree.


OK, I'll go with that then.

Notice that at 75 he asks the following question concerning knowing what a game is without being able to say what it is:
"Is this knowledge somehow equivalent to an unformulated definition?"

The point is that there is a multitude of possible amounts of time between the first point and the second. Therefore the amount of time between those two points is indeterminate.